6 Reasons Not to Unschool

1. Connection

If connection with your children and the world sounds awful to you and you prefer disconnection from your loved ones, communities, and nature, then you do not want to unschool. The unschooling lifestyle is all about carrying that connection piece throughout life with time and focus directed to the bonds you share with each other as a family and your place in the world at large. If you look at your child and think, “Ew, no thank you,” then run far and fast from unschooling.

2. Trust

If trusting your children and their natural learning journey is not something you would ever do, then unschooling is not for you. Do you remember when society said it was time for your child to learn to walk and so you enrolled them in a walking class where they were sat down at a desk and reviewed text books about the locomotive forces behind walking until they were tested on how well they memorized the content and passed the test and officially attained the milestone of walker? If you know that you definitely couldn’t trust your child to learn anything naturally as they have a need or desire then stay safely away from unschooling.

3. Freedom

If the whole concept of freedom makes you downright indignant and you prefer a society in which everyone is caged indoors all day and must request permission to do everything from drink water to pee, then unschooling is something you will wildly object to. Can you believe there are children out there sleeping when tired, eating when hungry, and learning when inspired? WTF. It’s almost as if they believe their time and lives are their own.

4. Collaboration

If parenting through respectful collaboration with children makes you want to grab someone smaller than you and spank the nonsense out of them, then unschooling is something you should vocally object to. Who do these parents think they are treating children as though they are actual human beings instead of property? This generation . . . I swear . . . everything that’s wrong with society.

5. Experience

If learning that is experiential and self-driven is meaningful and lasting, then sign you up for rote memorization and regurgitation without context. I mean, who wants to learn about state government by touring the actual capital building with a passionate senator when they could have some random facts they didn’t ask for about government crammed down their throats? No thank you unschooling, you’ll pass. They can learn about tide pools by playing in them and making their own discoveries that they can research but you’ll sit in this room and label your tide pool diagram, thank you very much.

6. Success

If the main quality for success in this country is silent obedience, then unschooling is the path to failure. Raising children in a framework where innovation, creativity, self-motivation, adaptation, and leadership in collaboration naturally thrive is not the formula for success you believe in. The industrial assembly line – that’s what you’re raising your children for and you’re going to get your children to that finish line faster and better than any of the other children. Winner fist bump.

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Hi, I'm Rachel

the Sage Parenting Coach

I help you go from stuck and stressed to Confident Earth Mama Goddess (flower crown not required!). I work from the Pacific Northwest, where I live wild and free in connection with my 3 attachment-parented and unschooled wildings and the papa bear in our mid-mod fixer-upper on the water. Wherever you are, we can connect to create your own gentle parenting plan.